Simone Biles, the Greatest Olympic Gymnast Ever

Simone Biles found herself in a unique spot. She was behind for the first time in three years by .0034 of a point as she approached the finals in the Rio Olympic games. The balance beam and the floor exercise would determine if Simone succeeded or failed to become the greatest gymnast ever in the Olympic history.

Just before the floor exercise, Simone heard these wise words from her coach Boorman:

“Do it for yourself and do it from joy.”

Instead of getting into a defeatist mindset that could have choked her performance, Simone focused on tumbling for the joy of it. She did not focus on a perfect “outcome”, but instead she focused on the “process” of her joy. Doing it from joy.

When my clients focus on a perfect outcome, they are filled with stress, tension, and anxiety. They bog down in every way: creativity, motivation, and execution. Worse, avoidance and procrastination can set it in.

Talent and training get you into the competition. But to compete, focusing on your process gets champion results. By refocusing on the process of what you are doing, you can easily have a breakout performance.

What do I mean by process? Can you refocus on the experience of what you are doing rather than being obsessed about getting the perfect outcome? Change your focus to the enjoyment and pleasure of using your skills. Get curious about how you will overcome a challenge. Notice your mastery and contribution to a solution. Get excited about how you will make a difference today. Exercise your cleverness in figuring out a complex problem. Your education, experience, training and talents will flourish when you enter the flow state of what you are doing.

By focusing on your process, you will have good to best to champion outcomes.

Stress Reduces Emotional Intelligence

Crazy Busy? Breathe

Did you know that stress reduces emotional intelligence? It is a common reaction to “dumb down” under stress no matter how smart or experienced one might be. Worry, panic, and stress have cascading effects that compromises our thinking, decision-making, and interactions with others. Not good for top leadership skills! It is no wonder that a hallmark EI skill of top leaders is Stress Tolerance, or the ability to remain calm under pressure.

Typically, we react to stress with negative thoughts and emotions, which in turn affects how we behave and make decisions. Stress creates thoughts that are more negative, critical, or unduly catastrophic. We tend to distort, exaggerate, oversimplify, or ignore key events.

Stress alters our emotions such that we get more anxious, angry, irritable, and overwhelmed. Our interactions with others are impacted when we are thinking more negatively and are losing emotional control, We become curt, arrogant, or impulsive rather than civil and sociable. Or, we may hunker down and isolate rather than collaborate and problem-solve.

You are probably familiar with the surge of stress hormones like adrenaline. Are you also aware that your breathing becomes more shallow and less oxygen flows throughout your body? Your muscles tense up. Your heart rate quickens. Blood pressure elevates. We may overwork, under sleep, eat poorly, and skip exercise; all of which worsens the stress cycle. Further, does your stress reaction inspire followership or alienation at work?

Does your stress cycle inspire followership or alienation at work?

Meditating and learning how to breathe is one tool to nip the stress cascade effect. By intentionally manipulating our breathing, we can actually alter our physiological response to stress. Deep breathing brings calm to a highly activated body. Focused breathing disrupts the chain of negative thinking. Heated emotions subside. Our physiological systems calm as more oxygen flushes through our system. Once calmer, our thinking actually becomes clearer as the frontal cortex of our brain is re-engaged. We regain our ability to think creatively, analytically, and intuitively. We are better able to reason and to problem solve. We are more flexible rather than rigid. Finally, we are nicer to be around and others may be inspired to work with us and for us again.

Training yourself to remain calm and focused is a critical leadership skill. Learning to control your breathing is one key tool to stay calm and laser focused. Like strength training, it takes daily practice to learn to actively manipulate your breathing and reap the benefits to your health, body, mood, and even your career.

Get a simple method of breathing, by clicking below, and get Even More Success now.